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The delay in delivery of the West African Gas project is a source of headache for both Accra and Abuja...

At an interactive session on Africa’s Trade Corridors at the World Economic Forum in Cape Town last June, I expressed my personal frustration about the slow progress of the continent’s cross border energy projects. I cited the Congo’s Inga Dam project and the West African Gas Pipeline.
The mention of the West African Gas Pipeline was a way of putting a project from West Africa in the issue bin.
I’d reckoned that the choice of panelists for that session was too narrowed to a particular sub-region. With the exception of Thorleif Enger, Chairman of Norway’s Yara Foundation, who is European, everyone on the panel was a Southern African: Rob Davies - South Africa’s Minister of Trade and Industry, Antonio Fernado -the Mozambican minister of Industry and Commerce, Felix Mutati - the Zambian minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry and Tomaz Augusto Salomao - Executive Secretary, Southern African Development Community, based in Botswana. Even the moderator, Alex Hogg, is editor in chief of Moneywebb, South Africa.
But the sharpest response to my comment was from a fellow West African in the audience. Hannah Tetteh, the Ghanaian minister of Trade and Industry, chose my intervention to vent her anger at how Nigeria, in her view, was deliberately treating the delivery of gas to Ghana with levity. “You just wait and see, Ghana will soon start producing gas in abundance, once the Jubilee field (in deepwater, off  the Ghanaian coast) comes on stream. Then we wouldn’t need your gas anymore”.
It was a stinging rebuke. And it got to me because the honourable minister saw me as representing Nigeria, despite the fact that I’d introduced myself as working for Africa Oil+Gas Report, a Pan ............................... Check www.africaoilgasreport.com    for more and full details